Israel Matzav

Israel's most decorated soldier tries to be a diplomat

We often hear the refrain that Ehud Barak is Israel's most decorated soldier. Unfortunately, he has a habit of mixing in to things that aren't his business, and he did it again in an Israel Radio interview on Thursday morning.

In an interview with Israel Radio, Barak said that "considering Israel's standing in the international community we have to be smart – not just right. No good could come from unnecessarily escalating tensions with Germany, France and the UK."

Barak stressed that he believed that "the Europeans are wrong and we are right," but said that the Foreign Ministry erred in its response: "There's a difference between issuing a response and making so much noise it becomes headlines."

Israel, he added, needs to maintain good relations with its powerful EU allies: "We call upon Sarkozy and Cameron in matters which are of great importance to Israel, like the attempts to pursue ICC action against us – so we certainly don't want to alienate them."

As for the potential damage in the Foreign Ministry's statement, Barak said that "there's no need to get carried away."

Lieberman was dismissive of Barak.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's media advisor, Tzachi Moshe, later addressed Barak's criticism, saying that "We don't respond to heads of factions that hold less than six mandates."

Touche.

JPost adds:

Foreign Ministry Deputy Director-General for Europe Rafi Shutz said Thursday that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was not responsible for a harsh Wednesday statement criticizing Europe's condemnation of Israeli settlement policy, according to Army Radio.

Shutz said that other officials within the ministry wrote and released the statement claiming that European countries are "bound to lose their credibility" and are making themselves "irrelevant.”

...

However, the part of the statement that most infuriated Jerusalem was its backing of the Palestinian interpretation of the Quartet’s September 23 statement, which set out a framework for restarting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

“We call the parties to present as soon as possible to the Quartet comprehensive proposals on territory and security,” the council members said.

This contradicted a statement put out by representatives of the Quartet – which is made up of the US, EU, Russia and UN – just last week, which said these comprehensive proposals should be presented by the sides to each other in direct talks.

The Palestinians said earlier this month that while they have presented the Quartet with comprehensive proposals on security and territory, Israel has refused to do so, creating the impression that Jerusalem was obstructing the process.

Israel’s position is that these comprehensive proposals need to come out of negotiations between the sides, and not as a result of the Quartet mediating between them. The US has publicly backed this position.

There's another thing Barak said that wasn't in these articles. I only caught part of it, but the interviewer asked Barak, given that there is a US election on November 6, 2012, why doesn't Israel get commitments from Obama now regarding Iran and the 'Palestinians,' because after November 6, they will be much harder to come by. Barak said that Obama doesn't care about his reelection as much as he does about principal and therefore he won't make such commitments to us.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Ehud Barak, United Nations Security Council

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:53 PM